


where a laugh meets a cry

by eurydicees



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Suoh Tamaki, Coming Out, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Gay Ootori Kyouya, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious, Pining, being in love with your best friend who is actually emotionally incompetent, it's more of an allusion than blatant homophobia but just to be safe, not explicit but it's in my heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28944822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydicees/pseuds/eurydicees
Summary: It was just a joke; a simple, easy, pointless joke about the two of them kissing. But the hurt on Kyoya's face makes the laughter die in the thin air between them.In which Tamaki jokes about a kiss and a crush, Kyoya has never been more humiliated, and Tamaki has never been more confused.
Relationships: Ootori Kyouya/Suoh Tamaki
Comments: 33
Kudos: 244





	where a laugh meets a cry

**Author's Note:**

> [this atla post](https://geektasticwoodles.tumblr.com/post/626817948400730112/wait-no-he-does-it-once-before-they-get), but make it tamakyo. this started as a warm up that took my brain and ran away with it whoops

They’re sitting on Tamaki’s bed, books and papers scattered over the bedspread. Kyoya is studying for his calculus class, Tamaki for his French class, and their textbooks are a combination of languages and symbols that float in the silence between them as they work. Tamaki has a habit of doodling in the margins of his notebook, and he’s more focused on a sketch of Kyoya than he is on his French homework.

“Can we take a break now?” Tamaki asks, looking up from his sketch. 

Kyoya doesn’t take his eyes away from the problem set he’s working on. “You haven’t done any work in thirty minutes. You might as well have taken a break already.” 

“It’s not the same if you’re not also taking a break,” Tamaki says. He sets his pencil down, stretching. “Kyoya, you’ve been working for three hours straight, you can take a break.” 

“I’ll take a break when I’m done with this assignment.” 

“You said that three assignments ago,” Tamaki complains. He balls up a piece of scrap paper and tosses it at Kyoya. It bounces off of Kyoya’s cheek, and he looks up with a sour expression. 

“Tamaki, stop.” Kyoya glares at Tamaki, but Tamaki is well adjusted, and very, very used to Kyoya’s glares. Those glares stopped fazing him a few years ago. “It’s Monday. We have homework to do.” 

Tamaki rolls his eyes, leaning over to pick the balled up paper back up again. He unfolds it and then balls it back up again, not really focusing on the action, keeping his eyes on Kyoya. “You can’t possibly have that much work left to do. We’ve been at this since we got out of school.” 

“Well, I do have that much work,” Kyoya snaps. He looks back down at his paper, ignoring Tamaki again. But his focus is faltering, Tamaki can tell. “Stop it.” 

Tamaki throws the paper ball at him again, laughing quietly. “Come on, Kyoya.” 

“Tamaki, I swear,” Kyoya mutters. 

He picks up the paper ball and throws it right back at Tamaki, hitting him in the face. Tamaki falls backwards, more out of exhaustion than the actual hit, his head flopping against the pillow. He sighs, putting his hands over his eyes and groaning Kyoya’s name. 

“I’m bored.” 

“You can entertain yourself, I’m sure.” Kyoya licks his lips, trying to go back to calculus. 

But, as always, there’s something about Tamaki that makes the world spin just slightly out of focus. As always, there’s something about Tamaki that makes everything shift just a little bit to the side, or up, or down, and makes Kyoya lose his carefully maintained balance. 

Tamaki sits up again, the papers fluttering against the sheets when he moves and disturbs Kyoya’s piles of reference papers. “Kyoya…” 

He finds the scrap paper ball and throws it at Kyoya again, and it bounces off of his cheek. Kyoya snaps his head up, his glare dangerous. “Stop it.” 

“Oooohh,” Tamaki says, smirking, mostly just to piss him off, “you want to kiss me so bad right now.” 

It was a joke, he meant it as a joke, he _did,_ but Kyoya freezes. His expression drops, that sharp, angry glare drops into his stomach and Tamaki watches years of— of _something_ flood over Kyoya’s eyes, and it takes a moment, but then he sees it for what it is: hurt. 

“Don’t,” Kyoya whispers, but it’s not the cutting edge anger that he must have been trying for, instead it’s wet and angry and pained. “I’m not— I don’t—” 

He cuts himself off, and the two stare at each other in a tense, palpable silence. Tamaki thinks that one movement might send the whole world spiraling. 

“I was joking,” Tamaki says, “Kyoya—” 

“I need to go,” Kyoya mutters. They’re the smallest of words, the tiniest and most shadowed of sentences. “I need— I need to go.” 

Tamaki blinks, unable to move, solely able to watch as Kyoya stumbles off of the bed, grabbing at loose leaf papers and shoving his textbooks in his backpack. He’s rushing, moving as fast as he can, refusing to meet Tamaki’s eyes, but his hands are shaking. Tamaki can only watch as Kyoya walks out of the room, breaths uneven, his backpack unzipped and calculus worksheets still lingering on the bed. 

“Kyoya—” 

By the time that Tamaki can say his name again, Kyoya has vanished from sight. 

Tamaki doesn’t quite understand what had just happened, or what he’s supposed to do with it now, or how the two of them were ever going to move past this moment. He, suddenly and hopelessly, doesn’t know anything anymore. 

He stares at the empty doorway, eyes still seeing Kyoya’s face, the open and vulnerable widening of his eyes and the betrayed tremble of his lips, and the shadow of his back when he disappeared into the hallway. He can’t see anything but the pained way Kyoya had looked at him when Tamaki had made that joke. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t get why such a small thing would make the impenetrable Kyoya crack in that way. _You want to kiss me so bad,_ Tamaki had said, and— 

Oh. _Oh._

Kyoya wants to kiss him. He actually does want to kiss Tamaki, and Tamaki had made a joke about it, and Kyoya must think— Tamaki doesn’t actually know what Kyoya must be thinking at that moment, but he knows that it can’t be anything good. Kyoya has never been good with talking about feelings, especially not his own, and he might think that Tamaki is making fun of him.

It had been a joke, Tamaki had said it with a laugh, but he didn’t mean for it to hurt. He hadn’t known that it would hurt— how could he have known? 

Except, now that Tamaki is thinking about it, now that he’s looking over all of their interactions in the past few years, it’s glaringly obvious. The way that Kyoya looks at him has always held an intensity that Kyoya didn’t hold with anyone else, but Tamaki had always figured that that’s just because they’re closer friends. They trust each other and rely on each other in a way that Kyoya doesn’t trust anyone else, and while Tamaki hadn’t thought anything of it before, he’s definitely thinking about it now. 

There were so many moments, so many signs that Tamaki had missed. He doesn’t know how he might have been ignorant to it before, but now that he sees it, he can’t stop seeing it. The way that Kyoya will rest a hand on his shoulder when Tamaki is sitting next to him. The way that Kyoya leans into his touch, all while rejecting the touch of anyone else. The way that Kyoya only ever smiles when it’s Tamaki telling the joke. The way that— fuck, Kyoya had started an entire club with him. For him? 

Now that Tamaki’s rethinking, reframing their entire friendship, he’s left wondering how long this has been going on. How long Kyoya had been looking, and how long Tamaki hadn’t been looking back.

He has to fix this, somehow, but Tamaki doesn’t know how— where to start. 

It doesn’t weird him out in the way that it probably should. He should probably be more concerned about this, about what this means for their relationship, about what this means about Kyoya’s sexuality. 

But somehow it doesn’t. Somehow, Tamaki doesn’t care that Kyoya wants to kiss him. All that he cares about is the horrified expression that Kyoya had made when Tamaki had joked about it. All that he cares about is the fact that Kyoya must be hurting right now. 

He needs to tell him that, needs to— somehow— make Kyoya listen, and know that Tamaki doesn’t care. But Tamaki has never been good with feelings either, whatever his job as a host might make you think. He doesn’t know how to tell Kyoya that Tamaki wasn’t trying to make fun of him. How to tell Kyoya that it’s okay, that Tamaki doesn’t mind, has never minded Kyoya. Kyoya could kill a man, and Tamaki wouldn’t mind. It wouldn’t change the way that Tamaki thinks of him. Kyoya can be gay, and it’s not going to change the fact that he’s Tamaki’s closest friend. 

He has to try, though. He has to try and make Kyoya understand. 

Part of Tamaki— a miniscule part that he shoves as far down as possible— thinks that maybe he’s the one who doesn’t understand everything. But it’s not a part of him that he’ll listen to. It’s a train of thought he’ll shove as far away as possible and ignore for the time being. Right now, he just has to make sure that Kyoya is breathing again. 

After five minutes of panicked digging, he finds his cellphone buried under his pillow. He calls Kyoya five times, and gets no response. He texts ten more times, and gets nothing. Kyoya has either shut his phone off or he’s ignoring Tamaki intentionally, and Tamaki doesn’t know which one is worse. Kyoya is ignoring him, and maybe Tamaki should have expected this, but it’s hard all the same. 

He’s never felt more alone than when Kyoya ignores his sixth call. 

Ever since Tamaki had come to Japan, Kyoya had been there. Maybe it had been reluctant at first, maybe Kyoya hadn’t been staying willingly, maybe it had been a partnership based solely on self-interest— but something, at some point, had shifted. Something had changed, knocked them out of orbit and into a different dance. Not a bad dance, but a strange, new one. And Tamaki— Tamaki just hadn’t gotten the right memo. While Kyoya was dancing around his own feelings, Tamaki had been sinking into the security of friendship. 

But there hasn’t been a time in Japan that Tamaki hasn’t had Kyoya there with him. They’d had their fair share of fights— at the end of the day, despite all of the lavish, elite upbringings, they’re still teenage boys. They’ve fought, they’ve gone a day or two without speaking, once or twice. But there had always been an end in sight. Every time that they’d fought, Tamaki had had full faith that the argument would end. 

This time, he’s not so sure. This time, he’s messed up and he doesn’t know how he can fix it. He can’t just apologize if Kyoya won’t even pick up his calls. Tamaki tries again three more times before giving up— he texts a simple, _Can we talk? Whenever you’re ready?_ and hopes for the best. 

When he wakes up the next day before school, Kyoya still hasn’t responded. Tamaki gets ready for the day and tries to ignore the sinking pit of quicksand in his stomach. He can’t lose Kyoya, he _can’t._ He doesn’t know what he would do without him, and he likes to think that Kyoya feels the same way. Maybe he does— maybe too much. 

Tamaki goes to school, makes his way to class, and sees no sign of Kyoya. The bell is barely a minute from ringing when Kyoya finally slips into the classroom. He sits in the desk behind Tamaki, and he moves like a shadow, making no noise at all. 

Tamaki vaguely knows that this is what Kyoya had been like before— nothing more than the glare of a mirror, showing nothing more than what people want to see, and staying empty the rest of the time— and he’s terrified that now Kyoya is about to go back to that. Back to being silent. Back to being a shadow— not a shadow king, just the transparency of nighttime. 

“Kyoya,” Tamaki hisses, leaning back to try and catch Kyoya’s eyes. “Can we—” 

“If you don’t pay attention,” Kyoya says quietly, “you aren’t going to understand any of the material. And I’m not doing your homework for you.” 

His voice is strained, practiced, like he’s been planning this moment out for hours. Tamaki, swallowing his frustration, straightens up and goes back to listening to the lecture. They don’t speak for the rest of the class. 

It’s not until lunch that Tamaki can corner Kyoya again, following him to the cafeteria. He grabs onto Kyoya’s sleeve, dragging him into an empty classroom, ignoring his protests. 

But once they’re standing there, in that empty classroom, Tamaki’s fist still clenched around Kyoya’s sleeve, he forgets everything he was going to say. He forgets everything that he needs to say. He forgets everything that matters. Instead, he stands there in silence, staring at Kyoya. 

“Do you need something?” Kyoya asks. His voice is icy, but Tamaki has spent years analyzing Kyoya’s words, and he can hear the tremble. 

“Are you okay?” Tamaki asks, taking a deep breath. “You ran off yesterday and— and you didn’t answer any of my calls.” 

Kyoya nods, just once, in a stiff, stilted motion. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.” 

“Do you like me?” Tamaki asks, voice lowered to a deep whisper. Kyoya is quiet, just staring at him, lips parted and tongue still. “Kyoya.” 

“Does it matter?” Kyoya chokes out. 

Tamaki hesitates— not long, but just long enough for that stone mask to drop over Kyoya’s face again, any and all emotion suddenly shuttered up. “It doesn’t. Kyoya. I don’t care.” 

Kyoya swallows, and Tamaki wishes desperately that he could read the gears behind Kyoya’s eyes. “Then why are you asking?” 

Tamaki doesn’t have a good answer to that question. “I don’t know.” 

“Well,” Kyoya says, “then stop.” 

“But—” 

“If it doesn’t matter, and you don’t care, and you don’t have a reason to ask,” Kyoya bites out, “then don’t ask.” 

Tamaki is quiet at that, not quite sure what to do with that request. Kyoya seems to take his silence as an agreement, and he turns to go, face completely blank. His glasses are pushed right up his nose, eyes laser focused on the air in front of him, never flickering over to Tamaki. 

Tamaki hadn’t realized before that moment, watching Kyoya walk away, how much time Kyoya had spent looking at him. He hadn’t realized before that day, watching as Kyoya stayed as far away from him as possible, how much time Tamaki had spent reaching out for him— and always, always finding him there. Always, _always_ finding a hand to brush against, or a shoulder to rub, or an arm to grip on to. 

“You’re acting weird.” 

Sitting in Music Room 3, after all of the guests had left the room, Tamaki jumps at the sound of Haruhi’s voice cutting into his thoughts. Haruhi is standing next to the couch, her arms crossed. There are wrinkles at her forehead, the kind that only come when she’s stressed out. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tamaki says, smiling at her. 

It is— he thinks— a brave smile. The smile of someone who is so, so lost, but is still trying to pretend that everywhere is home. Trying to pretend that it isn’t Kyoya who is home, Kyoya who Tamaki is missing in the same way he might miss a limb. 

Haruhi licks her lips, eyes flickering from Tamaki and across the room, towards where Tamaki knows Kyoya is standing. “You and Kyoya both. You’re acting weird.” 

“How so?” 

“I don’t know,” Haruhi says slowly, “it’s hard to pin down. But you’re usually more… in sync. You’re both off today. You aren’t looking at each other.” 

Tamaki swallows, his mouth suddenly as dry as cotton. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Haruhi is quiet for a moment, and Tamaki wonders what it is that she’s seeing in him at that moment. He’s never been more preoccupied with something that he can’t talk about. Usually his go-to method of dealing with anything is talking about it. Usually with Kyoya. 

“Okay,” Haruhi says, slow and even. “Let me know if you do figure out what I’m talking about.” 

Tamaki frowns at that, but by the time that he looks up from his tea to look at her, she’s disappeared to go talk to Honey. People, he thinks, are always disappearing on him. It’s not a new phenomenon, but it hasn’t hurt like this in so long. It’s always been a dull ache— his mother, his father, his grandmother— but this is a reopening of a wound. This is the electrocution of lighting hitting the metal of a heart. 

Things will heal, Tamaki tells himself, with time. Everything heals with time. That’s how this is supposed to work, that’s how the world is supposed to spin around. With every rotation of the earth, another cut is supposed to heal. 

But as the days drag on, it feels like each spin of the globe is just more salt in the wound. Each time that Tamaki looks at Kyoya, only to find Kyoya turning away as soon as possible, his heart breaks just a little bit harder. What, he wonders, does it mean to heal when you won’t even admit that you’re hurting? Tamaki doesn’t know, and he guesses that Kyoya doesn’t know either. 

A week later, the boy comes into Music Room 3. His name is Daiki, he’s a first year in class 1B, he has brown hair and brown eyes, he’s of average height, and he’s very much male. 

“Is this— Music Room 3?” he asks, swallowing. His voice is quiet, as if he’s afraid of what the words mean. 

Almost all of the guests have left for the day, and they’re starting to close down the room, but Tamaki always has room for one more customer. Male or not. 

“Welcome,” Tamaki says, “Are you here for the Host Club?” 

The boy nods jerkily. He says his name, and Tamaki only vaguely processes it. His mind is going too fast to think about names; he’s thinking about having a boy in Music Room 3, wanting to talk to one of the hosts; and he’s thinking about Kyoya. He’s always thinking about Kyoya, these days. 

“Yes,” Daiki murmurs. He looks up, finally meeting Tamaki’s eyes. “Is that okay?” 

“Of course,” Tamaki tells him. “Everyone is welcome here.” 

Daiki lets out a breath, and Tamaki can practically see the weight leave his shoulders. When he straightens up, he looks a little bit braver. Tamaki wonders what it took to get him here, what courage he had to rack up before he could enter the room and ask to see a host. He wonders how much that courage he’s built weighs down on him; how much the courage that it takes to be gay at Ouran Academy must be pushing down at his shoulders. 

“Why don’t you talk to Kyoya?” Tamaki asks. “He’s over by the couch over there. I think you’ll like him.” 

Half of Tamaki thinks that this is a terrible idea, one that Kyoya will hate him for. But the other half of him thinks that maybe this will help, maybe this will make things normal between them again. Maybe, if Kyoya has someone else to love, things will be normal. Maybe, if Kyoya realizes that it really is okay that he likes him, that Tamaki doesn’t care, he’ll be able to look Tamaki in the eye again. 

“Okay,” Daiki says quietly. He nods at Tamaki, another stiff, nervous movement; and then he goes over to Kyoya, taking deep breaths. 

“Why Kyoya?” 

Tamaki blinks, then turns behind to find Kaoru and Hikaru standing there, frowning. Neither of them look particularly impressed by him. 

“You didn’t even bother to introduce him to _us,”_ Hikaru says.

“Being gay is our whole _thing,”_ Kaoru says. 

Tamaki closes his eyes. There’s genuine confusion on Kaoru’s face, and Tamaki doesn’t really know what to do with that. He doesn’t know what to do with a lot of things, recently. He’s finding that the world is much greater and larger and lonelier than it had been when him and Kyoya were together. 

“You guys were busy.” Tamaki opens his eyes, looking at the twins. 

Kaoru hesitates, looking at Tamaki with a strange, inquisitive look. “Is Kyoya…”

Tamaki bites down hard on his bottom lip, trying to choke back everything Kyoya hadn’t said. He doesn’t want to— to expose Kyoya like that, in a way he so clearly doesn’t want to be known.

“Is Kyoya gay?” Hikaru blurts out, probably louder than he meant to. 

Tamaki’s silence lasts just a little too long, and both of the twins’ grins falter. 

“Please,” Tamaki says quietly. “Don’t say anything to him.” 

“We won’t,” both of them say in unison. 

Then Kaoru smiles, just slightly. “So, what are you going to do about it?” 

“Nothing?” Tamaki says, but it’s more of a question than anything else. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, he doesn’t know how to tell Kyoya that Tamaki loves him, so much, unquestionably, unconditionally, just not… like how Kyoya loves him. “I’m not going to do anything.” 

Hikaru licks his lips, considering that. Both of the twins look at him as if they’re trying to see through him, trying to see the bones under his muscles and the atoms which make up his heart. He wonders what they’re finding there. He wonders if it’s the same thing as they would have found before all of this happened. 

“Sure,” Hikaru finally says. He slings an arm around Kaoru’s shoulder, and then turns them both around. Just before they walk away, he calls back, “He misses you too, you know!” 

And Tamaki really doesn’t know what to do with that, either. 

He feels a bit like he’s holding a thousand rivers in his head, all threatening to fall off of his tongue and flood the music room, to flood the earth, to flood the universe. All of these feelings, all of these words, all of these thoughts, all of this hurting— it could drown even the stars. All of this wanting that he’s doing is enough to make even the sun ache with fire. He’s a supernova, a black hole waiting to happen. 

Tamaki takes a deep breath, walking away from the music room door and back towards the changing room. Before he leaves the room, he catches a glimpse of Kyoya and Daiki talking. Kyoya is pouring him a cup of tea, and Daiki is blushing, but he looks happy. Tamaki can’t put words to it, but the sight of Kyoya has never hurt more and he doesn’t know why. 

Tamaki disappears into the changing room, and isn’t that ironic? This time, it’s him vanishing into thin air while Kyoya isn’t looking. This time, it’s him walking away. 

It feels wrong. In every way— to turn his back on Kyoya, to leave him alone with a boy he doesn’t know, to pretend that none of this is happening. Tamaki wants nothing more than for things to be normal again, but he’s not sure how much of “normal” revolves around how desperately he wants to keep Kyoya for himself. 

Maybe it’s selfish. He can’t love Kyoya in the way that Kyoya seems to want. Daiki can. It’s probably selfish to want to stop that from happening. But at the same time, Tamaki thinks about the way that Kyoya used to look at him— before all of the humiliation and hurt and careful, careful apathy— and he wants that back. That kind of love. 

He wants Kyoya’s love and— oh.

He wants Kyoya. 

_Oooohh, you want to kiss me so bad._

Tamaki runs through every swear he knows, in every language he knows, in the span of a millisecond, staring at himself in the mirror and thinking about Kyoya and that joke and the way that Tamaki so fiercely needs his attention, his love, his devotion. It’s strange, though, because Tamaki looks in the mirror and thinks, _oh._ It’s not Kyoya that has been so devout this whole time. It’s not Kyoya who has been so hopelessly in love. It’s not Kyoya who craves that kiss. 

There’s nothing worse, Tamaki thinks, than this feeling. He had, only moments before, sent another boy over to Kyoya. He couldn’t have more explicitly said that he’s not interested than through everything he’s done in the past week. 

Tamaki leaves campus in a rush, not bothering to stop and say goodbye to anyone else. All that he can think about is Kyoya. But they’re not even comprehensible thoughts that he can pin down and repress— all he can think about is that Kyoya’s smile is so rare and so beautiful; and that the tides are flooding out even as the drought comes in; and that Kyoya hasn’t looked him in the eye in a week, no matter how hard Tamaki has tried; and that Tamaki has to get to Kyoya this instant or perhaps he’ll drown on land or burn in water. 

Tamaki doesn’t know if he believes in soulmates, but he believes that, whether in the form of stars or bodies, him and Kyoya have been looking for each other since the start of the universe. 

When he gets back to the second Suoh mansion, he immediately runs to his room and calls Kyoya. His backpack gets dumped on the floor and he lies in bed, listening to the ringing. When Kyoya doesn’t answer, he gives in and texts, just asking— pleading— for Kyoya to talk to him. 

He doesn’t actually think that Kyoya is going to come until the doorbell is ringing, and Kyoya is letting himself into Tamaki’s room. 

“Hi,” Kyoya says quietly. “You said you wanted to talk.” 

Tamaki can only bring himself to nod. Now that Kyoya is here, Tamaki has lost every word he might have been able to say in the privacy of his own loneliness. 

Kyoya makes his way farther into the room, sitting next to Tamaki on the bed. They’re close, close enough that Tamaki can feel the warmth of Kyoya’s body bleeding into the space between them, but far enough that they don’t touch. 

“Thank you,” Kyoya finally says, breaking a silence that Tamaki didn’t know how to stop. “For sending Daiki over to me. I think he’d like Kaoru better than me, though. I’m not his type.” 

“And Kaoru is?” 

Kyoya shrugs. “I only talked to him for ten minutes. It’s just my next best guess. Besides, there’s a limited number of us who are— who are gay.” 

“Right,” Tamaki says. 

They sit in silence for a little while longer, until Kyoya sighs, crossing his arms around his waist and holding himself tightly. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. Tamaki frowns at that— it’s the first time he’s heard Kyoya genuinely apologize for something. “I know I haven’t been… good. Lately.” 

“I don’t—” 

“You just surprised me that day,” Kyoya continues, barrelling over Tamaki and refusing to hear any interruption. “I shouldn’t have avoided you just based on… surprise.” 

Tamaki swallows, throat dry. The two of them are both staring at the floor beneath their feet; though the mattress and blankets are soft, there’s a tension in the taut way that they’re both holding themselves that can only be found in this variant of a confessional. 

“I—” 

Kyoya shakes his head, and Tamaki goes quiet again. Kyoya takes a breath, shoulders rising, and then falling. “It didn’t mean anything. I was just surprised. My reaction. It didn’t mean anything.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” Tamaki says softly. “Do you love me?” 

“Don’t do this.” Kyoya’s voice is dark, a kind of deep akin to the depths of an ocean. 

Tamaki takes a deep breath. “I think I— I realized, while we weren’t really talking as much, that I—” 

“I don’t want your pity.” Kyoya looks at Tamaki, eyes suddenly hard. “I don’t want your pity and I don’t want you to say things you don’t mean just because you feel bad. It’s not a big deal. I’ll get over it.” 

Tamaki turns to meet his eyes, opens his mouth, ready to protest, but Kyoya stands up, smoothing out the wrinkles in his pants. “It’s not a big deal, Tamaki.” He laughs humorlessly. “I’ll live.” 

Kyoya takes a deep breath, dropping his hands to his sides, and he turns to go— he turns to disappear behind the corner of the hallway, and everything will be different, all over again. The same old wound, reopening every time their eyes meet and their words cross. 

Tamaki grabs Kyoya’s hand. Just before he can walk away, Tamaki grabs his hand and holds on tight, and, with just that one touch, begs him to stay. 

“It’s not pity,” Tamaki murmurs. He doesn’t look at Kyoya— he keeps his hand tight around Kyoya’s waist and his eyes on his own lap. “And you didn’t let me finish. I realized, I think, that I love you too.” 

Kyoya pries Tamaki’s hand off of his wrist. “This isn’t funny.” 

“It’s not a joke.” 

Kyoya is still, still enough to be shadow. Tamaki wonders if Kyoya thinks that he’ll disappear if he stays quiet for long enough. Just long enough that they don’t have to have this conversation, that they don’t have to talk about their _feelings._

“What?” Kyoya whispers.

Tamaki looks up at him, finding surprise etched into Kyoya’s face. “Is that really so hard to believe?” 

Kyoya swallows, then sits back down on the bed, the mattress dipping underneath his weight. Their thighs are pressed against each other, Kyoya’s hands carefully placed on his lap. “You make it so hard, did you know that?” 

Something hot floods through Tamaki’s stomach and burns. “What?” 

“You do,” Kyoya continues, seemingly unhearing. “You make it so hard not to love you. And I— I make it hard to love me.” 

“Kyoya…” Tamaki murmurs. 

Kyoya just shakes his head. “I know it’s true. You don’t have to deny it.” 

“It’s not true,” Tamaki says, voice now fierce. “I love you and it’s the easiest thing in the world.” 

Kyoya closes his eyes, just drinking in those words. “And you’re not joking?” 

“I wouldn’t joke about this,” Tamaki tells him. He looks at Kyoya’s hand, sitting there on his lap, and he reaches over to rest his palm on the back of Kyoya’s hand. Kyoya’s skin is frozen cold, but Tamaki can feel the heat beneath. “You can trust me.” 

Kyoya doesn’t hesitate. “I do.” 

He turns his hand over, intertwining their fingers, palm pressed to palm. Without unfolding their hands, Tamaki shifts slightly, so that he can face Kyoya. With his free hand, he reaches over to brush the tips of his fingers along Kyoya’s jawline, his palm coming to a rest at the line of Kyoya’s cheekbones. With the subtlest and faintest of movements, Tamaki pulls Kyoya closer. It would be so easy for Kyoya to move away, but he doesn’t; the two of them just lean in and meet somewhere in the middle. 

Their first kiss is hesitant— just the softest press of lips. They’re unsure of themselves, and Tamaki half wonders if Kyoya has ever kissed anyone before him. Then Kyoya presses in closer, and Tamaki parts his lips, and the two of them find the rhythm to a song only they know. 

Tamaki lets go of Kyoya’s hand, coming over to reach the back of Kyoya’s neck instead, tangling his fingers in the soft tug of Kyoya’s hair. Kyoya’s hands gravitate towards Tamaki’s waist, pulling him in, closer and closer. If they were any closer, they would be sharing a soul. 

When Tamaki pulls away, he lets his hands linger— one hand drifting from neck to shoulder to arm; the other hand still resting against Kyoya’s cheek. Kyoya covers that hand with his own, slotting his fingers between Tamaki’s fingers. He shifts slightly, pressing his lips to the heel of Tamaki’s palm. His eyelids are half shut, like he’s maybe he’s half asleep, dreaming. 

Kyoya meets his eyes, finally, and they share something that they don’t want to give to the rest of the world. A secret, maybe. Or a private joke, just for the two of them. 

“You want to kiss me so bad right now,” Kyoya murmurs. His eyes are bright. 

Tamaki grins, wide and joyous and free. “Yeah, I do.”


End file.
